The present invention relates to flat panel displays, such as liquid crystal displays and the like, and, more particularly, to a novel prismatic device for efficiently and uniformly illuminating a transmissive flat panel display.
It is well known that, in order to efficiently back-light a transmissive flat panel display, such as a liquid crystal display and the like, a planar radiator is required at the rear of that display. Typically, the light source is a fluorescent lamp which is usually placed in a reflective cavity, where the cavity size must be relatively large to allow the light from the source to be sufficiently integrated to substantially uniformly illuminate the rear surface of the flat panel display. Generally, these cavities are very much larger and thicker than is desirable for illuminating the relatively thin displays. It is therefore highly desirable to reduce the overall size of an illuminator utilized for uniformly and efficiently illuminating a flat panel display, such as a liquid crystal display and the like.